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Graduates of New York Law School and Cooley Law School, respectively, filed lawsuits against their alma maters claiming that the schools were deceitful in the reporting of their graduate employment statistics.Plaintiffs in both the suit against Cooley (PDF) and the suit against New York Law School (PDF) are represented by the New York City-based Kurzon Strauss law firm.Cooley filed a lawsuit (PDF) against Kurzon Strauss last month in response to solicitations the firms posted on Craigslist and JD Underground that included a draft of a purported class action complaint contending that Cooley incorrectly reported its graduates’ job placements. David Anziska told the ABA Journal at the time that the firm intended to countersue Cooley as well as the school’s lawyers at Miller Canfield.Cooley filed a separate lawsuit (PDF) last month seeking to unmask anonymous bloggers who Cooley representatives say defamed the school. This week, Berkley, Mich., lawyer John Hermann, who … [Read more...] about Grads Sue New York Law School and Cooley Law, Saying They Inflated Job and Salary Stats

A Brooklyn judge has filed a $10 million defamation suit against the New York Daily News for publishing two columns that claimed he improperly presided over a case involving a lawyer who had represented him before the judicial conduct commission.Judge Larry Martin claims in the lawsuit that lawyer Ravi Batra was the source of the columns, which he labels “outrageous, grossly irresponsible [and] malicious,” the New York Law Journal reports.The columns claimed Martin presided over a mortgage foreclosure case in which his personal lawyer, Jerome Karp, secretly represented one of the litigants.The articles cited allegations in a lawsuit filed by Batra and said the “complicated world of judicial corruption in Brooklyn—a snakepit filled with bribery and back-room political deals” was about to be “blown wide open.”Lawyers for Karp and Martin told the New York Law Journal that Karp’s involvement in the lawsuit involved a letter he wrote at the … [Read more...] about Judge Files Defamation Suit Against New York Daily News

A lawsuit filed on Wednesday claims New York’s ban on assisted suicides doesn’t apply to doctors who help terminally ill patients end their lives.Among the plaintiffs are three doctors who lost a constitutional challenge to the New York assisted-suicide ban in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997, Reuters reports. Another plaintiff is 81-year-old cancer patient Eric Seiff, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan.The New York Times had a preview of the suit (PDF), which seeks a declaratory judgment that the state law banning assisted suicides does not bar physicians from helping mentally competent patients with terminal illnesses who want a peaceful death. A press release is here.If the law is construed to apply to physicians in such circumstances, the suit says, the law violates equal protection and due process protections in the state constitution.Lawyers from the Disability Rights Center and Debevoise & Plimpton filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs. … [Read more...] about Suit claims New York’s ban on assisted suicide doesn’t apply to doctors

Donald Trump and the former Trump University are facing a $40 million suit that claims students hoping to learn real-estate techniques paid for pricey courses that didn’t live up to promises.New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the suit on Saturday, report the New York Times, the Associated Press and Reuters.“More than 5,000 people across the country who paid Donald Trump $40 million to teach them his hard sell tactics got a hard lesson in bait-and-switch,” Schneiderman said in a press release. “Mr. Trump used his celebrity status and personally appeared in commercials making false promises to convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn’t afford for lessons they never got.”Ads for free workshops displayed Donald Trump’s photograph and signature, or portrayed letters by Trump himself. They promised that Trump’s handpicked experts would share his techniques; one told would-be students that they could … [Read more...] about Donald Trump faces $40M suit by New York AG, who says students got lesson in bait-and-switch

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed two executive orders: one requiring state contractors to regularly disclose employee job title and salary data and the other prohibiting state agencies from making pre-job offer inquiries about candidates’ prior or current salary. The executive orders are aimed at eliminating the gender wage gap and strengthening equal pay protection in New York.NYS Contractors Must Disclose Employee Job Titles, SalaryExecutive Order 162 requires state contractors and their subcontractors to submit job title and salary for each employee working on a contract, in addition to the equal employment opportunity information (such as sex, race, and ethnicity) already required. If a contractor cannot identify the employees working directly on a state contract, the contractor must submit the information for the entire workforce. The new reporting requirements will apply to state contracts issued and executed on or after June 1, 2017. The information must be … [Read more...] about New York Toughens Equal Pay Laws: State Contractors Must Disclose Salary Data, State Agencies Cannot Ask Applicants for Salary History

Updated: In what may be a harbinger of a new round of litigation against law schools accused by their own graduates of luring them to enroll with misleading legal job placement information, an appeal to the state’s highest court has been filed by the losing plaintiffs in a suit against New York Law School.A Tuesday filing asks the New York State Court of Appeals to review a December ruling nixing the suit against the law school by an intermediate appeals court, the National Law Journal reports.Attorney Jesse Strauss says he also plans to appeal a trial court’s adverse decision last month concerning a suit against Albany Law School, and says he expects to see appeals in cases brought against law schools in other states, including three in Illinois. Although the result in most of the 15 fraud suits brought against law schools throughout the country hasn’t been favorable to the plaintiffs, several suits in California have survived motions to dismiss, the article … [Read more...] about Did ‘troubled’ appeals court err by nixing suit over New York Law School job stats?

New York’s top court won’t hear an appeal by graduates of New York Law School who unsuccessfully sought to hold the school responsible for their decision to enroll.The New York Court of Appeals declined the case (PDF) on Thursday, the National Law Journal reports. An intermediate appeals court had dismissed the case in December. The Appellate Division, First Department had concluded the school’s job placement disclosures were “unquestionably incomplete” but not actionable under a state law that bars deceptive acts.A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jesse Strauss, said the court’s refusal isn’t a good sign for three other suits against law schools in New York, according the National Law Journal account. In January, a trial judge dismissed a similar suit against Albany Law School. Suits against Brooklyn Law School and the Hofstra University Maurice A. Deane School of Law are pending before the trial court.Strauss told the NLJ he was disappointed that … [Read more...] about Job stats suit against New York Law School hits final roadblock

Updated: A suit claiming New York Law School lured students to enroll with misleading job statistics is baseless and should be dismissed, the law school argues in a motion filed last week in state court in Manhattan.The motion was filed by Venable lawyer Michael Volpe, a New York Law School graduate, according to a press release. He notes that the plaintiffs’ lawyers have announced plans to sue 15 additional schools. “The allegations are not only baseless, but also belied by the plaintiffs’ own complaint which demonstrates this case has nothing to do with New York Law School and everything to do with a crusade against the entire law school industry,” Volpe says in the press release.The motion (PDF posted by New York Law School) contends that the plaintiffs, three New York Law School grads, are apparently dissatisfied because the ABA does not currently require the schools to release detailed post-graduate information. The plaintiffs contend the school issues … [Read more...] about Lawyer for New York Law School Says Misleading-Stats Suit Is Baseless and Part of a Crusade

The N.Y. State Senate and Assembly recently introduced “competing” bills both targeting increased employment protections for victims of domestic violence. The bills each provide various measures of job security for employees who need to be absent from work on the basis of a domestic violence issue.This is not the first time state lawmakers have attempted to introduce protections for victims of domestic violence. In 2010, the Assembly introduced a bill protecting domestic violence victims from job or housing discrimination. The bill was ultimately vetoed by then-Governor Paterson who was concerned that the definition of “domestic violence victim” was overbroad. The Assembly bill now looks to Social Services Law, while the Senate bill looks to the Family Court Act and N.Y. Penal Law, for a definition of “victim of domestic violence.” Arguably, the definitions contained in the proposed bills provide a more focused understanding of the term domestic … [Read more...] about New York (NY) Legislature Introduces Protections for Victims of Domestic Violence

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has announced that it would extend the time for certain taxpayers to identify stocks as being held for investment so that income from those stocks would be tax-exempt [TSB M-15(4.1)C, (5.1)I]. Instead of having to make the identification on the date on which the stock is purchased, many corporations will now have a 90-day grace period to make the identification. This relaxation of the identification rules will come as a major relief to many companies that otherwise may have been ambushed by New York’s new rules, particularly out-of-state corporations that start doing business in New York after acquiring investment securities. The announced change is effective immediately.Under corporate tax reform legislation enacted in 2015, corporations—to treat income from stock held as an investment as tax-exempt investment income—must identify the stock on the date of purchase as being held for investment and follow certain … [Read more...] about New York State Tax Department Relaxes Investment Income Identification Rules